Goodbye Thailand, off to India!

I am still in Thailand and about to head out to India in an hour to the airport. I have a couple friends to meet up with, but I really have not planned a lot for India. A friend is going to come pick me up at the airport and I get to stay with him and his family. I know them through a very good mutual friend from the University of Minnesota. I don't know how after nearly 3 months of travel, I still have such good luck.

I like Thailand a lot, but the main problem is the abundance of tourism. People expect money and prey on those that they think they can get the most money from. If you dare, and I recommend to do so, venture outside the touristy areas, you will find that Thai people are amazingly nice and interesting people. I managed to visit some of the touristy areas in Bangkok, but those outside the dreaded Khao San Road area, which means that they are much nicer. Khao San Road is the epicenter of all people coming to Southeast Asia to let loose, travel for a couple weeks or live what they call the so-called hippy life of a traveler. Khao San Road used to be far less everything only just ten years ago, but with the abundance of cheap flights, Lonely Planet travel guides and everything else that encourages wanderlust, the place has utterly flourished. Although, I'm not sure flourished is the right word. Many people might know the area from the infamous move The Beach with Leonardo Di Caprio.

I saw the Grand Palace today, which is truly grand and was created in the 1700s as the new center of the Rama government. Everything seems to be adorned with gold and brightly and intricately painted scenes of legendary tales. Also, I visited the market surrounding Thamasaat University, which was full of yummy eats, Buddha idols, knick-knacks, clothes and everything else that reminded me of a bizarre garage sale. Thamasaat University was my second choice for my study abroad, but some how I was chosen for my first choice in Taiwan. After visiting tons of markets including one of the largest night markets in the world (which was very fashionable and trendy) and the very jaw dropping Chatuchak Market (the best I have seen for clothes shopping, although the sizes are on the smaller side).

I most definitely enjoyed Thailand, but I am think I am ready to head onto India, well as ready as anyone could be for such a complex and intense country.

Overland from Cambodia to Bangkok

First of all, I just wanted to let everyone know that I am still alive, and somewhere on a tropical island on the coast of Thailand (Koh Tao) doing an open water diving course at Seashell Resort on Sairee Beach. Secondly, I wanted to let everyone know that I am coming home around Thanksgiving (I still have yet to book my flight). Thirdly, I am heading to Mumbai, India on September 30th from Bangkok.

Even though it has been nearly two weeks since I was in Cambodia, the country still lingers in my mind. I think the disparities between the two contrasting classes is stark and confusing. The people are very addictive and the history is quite troubled. I can't help but think about all the friends I made at the school in the countryside or the children I befriended in Siem Reap, even when I didn't buy anything from them.

Thailand is surprisingly expensive and I had the most visa issues here. I have managed now to extend my visa so that I have three weeks instead of the two you get when you cross overland. (I am convinced that there is an airline-lobbying-conspiracy that influences the government's visa issuing structure. The law seemed to change when the awful stretch of road between Siem Reap and Bangkok was finally redone, handy huh?).

I have managed to spend a couple head-spinning and hectic days in Bangkok and then made my way down to Krabi on the southwestern side of the peninsula. Krabi is one of the best locations in the world for rock climbing, and naturally I felt the urge to climb 40 meters up. Alfonso and I signed up for a course over three days, two days then a day break and then the final day. The rocks are perfect to climb, limestone with some smooth to small hand grips overlooking white beaches, lush islands and miles of turquoise blue ocean. We both learned to lead, abseil, and just in general improve our ability to climb. My arms were sore the first day and by the last day, I felt it in my legs more as I remembered to steady my weight on my legs and use my hands just for balance. Krabi was our last stop traveling together, Alfonso was heading back to Bangkok from Krabi and then home, and I made my way to Koh Samui.

Random tip: In Thailand, there are people who sleep under the bus with the bags, they go through every one's stuff even if you have locks on it. I am pretty sure that they have lock picking kits or something like that. Don't trust to leave anything valuable. They surely won't steal clothes, but electronics, money, etc. This was the first time I had anything like this happen the whole time I have been traveling, but nothing was taken, just moved a lot around in my bag.

I met a big group of people on my way to Koh Samui, so I was not alone for long and after spending a couple days in the over touristy island I was ready for a change of scene. I skipped Phuket (too much in every sense of the phrase) and headed to Koh Tao to do some scuba diving. I have been planning on doing scuba diving here (still here now) for the last 3 months. I have already completed my first 4 dives and open water certification through PADI. I am going to do the advanced course and will go down to 30 meters.

I am getting ready to fly to Mumbai on September 30th and getting excited thinking about home coming up soon. I hope everyone has not forgotten about me yet :). I wish everyone a wonderful autumn. More updates soon :).

Takeo Province, Phnom Pehn - Cambodia

There are still remnants of the Khmer Rouge genocide everywhere. Pol Pot, the leader of the massacre, only died in 1998 while in exile. After a very very slow boat from Chau Doc on the Vietnamese side of the Mekong Delta, we made it to Phnom Pehn.

Phnom Pehn is a city where you see hoards of tuk tuk drivers pushing through the lanes of Hummers and BMWs while children rummage through discarded waste on the roadside. The city has a deafening pulse from the motorbikes, food stalls, windy little streets and people trying to sell you everything. Most surprisingly of all, despite Cambodia's recent tragic history of the country, the people have such big smiles and a jovial sense of humor.

We managed to make our way to the National Museum, the S21 Prison museum, and the killing fields 14 km outside the city. We did all of this despite the fact that September is the rainiest month in Cambodia.

Besides the typical touristy things that someone does in Phnom Pehn we made our way to a little village in Takeo province to do some good ol' fashion teaching. At the Sorya School (http://www.sorya.org/index.php) established 8 years ago by a Cambodian-German to make a difference. We were not entirely sure if we were on the right bus heading into the countryside in Cambodia and exactly how we would get to the school, but we managed to get to the closest town and asked about the school. Of course the town knew which school that we were talking about. The impact of the school has been tremendous in the community. When we walked down the road, people were stopping us to demonstrate their English proficiency acquired at Sorya.

I met so many different students and heard some of their stories. Their stories were filled with sorrow, frustration and such an immense desire to change their situation, that I could not help but be captivated. One girl, Csreytouch a.k.a. Suzie, invited us over to her house during the lunch break to meet her family and see her home. As we ate a coconut that she picked from the 15 meter tall tree, we met her family and heard her horror stories of working in textile factories. She made only $50 a month and worked some 70 hours (all while standing) with little ability to save any for her family. She has very simple dreams, but almost no ability to achieve even the smallest of them.

The organization has helped the village make a great deal of progress with regards to access to clean drinking water, meeting dietary needs, education and helping the community build for the future. The organization has provided concrete rainwater collection barrels for each of the village's homes. The school uses satellite Internet and is solar powered to really enhance the students' educations. The hardest part about the school was leaving, people were so kind and excited to have a conversation. They truly did not want us to go, even after such a short while we felt like we were a part of the community.

Appreciate every single spoonful of rice you eat. John, one of the students at Sorya, yelled to us on the road asking if we wanted to help with the rice. We were in a rush back to Sorya for the afternoon classes and told him no, but asked when they start in the morning. He laughed and said 7 am with the expectation that we were joking. He had a very large smile and his mother laughed when we showed up the next morning for work. There is a definite rhythm to picking rice without damaging the plant. The plants were only 2 months old and still in their seedbeds, we were helping pick them so they could be spread out over more fields to properly produce rice. This technique ensures a high gross and suitable quality. After two hours of perfecting my picking technique my legs were sore and my hands dyed from the purple residue on the plants, the rice farmer's tattoo. We headed back to Phnom Pehn, but I doubt I will forgetting the experience at Sorya any time soon.

The Last Couple Weeks--Vietnam Baby!

I have had intermittent access to Internet, at best, for the last couple weeks and I have been pretty bad about updating my blog. I finished my travels in Vietnam without any problems and I am not in Cambodia. Sorry that these updates on the below mentioned cities is shortened.

Halong Bay--
After Hanoi we headed to Halong Bay where we encountered one of the many scams around, tours of Halong Bay. Fortunately, we were not real victims of this scam, and found out that in one case we paid 1/5 of some of the passengers. Be careful when booking tours through agencies, they have no incentive not to rip you off. We spent a couple nights on Cat Baa Island, which is the only inhabited island in the bay. One of the days we spent motorbiking around the island, and doing a short hike up to a viewing tower to see the sharp, lush, and green peaks on the island. From Halong Bay we made our way back to Hanoi and off to Hue.

Hue--
Hue is gorgeous with the old town heavily influenced by the French and the ancient empire that once inhabited the area. After spending a couple days motorbiking around, playing cards with the locals, visiting the tombs and locals' beach, we headed to Hoi An.

Hoi An--Saigon
From Hoi An, we headed to Mui Ne and from there to Saigon a.k.a. Ho Chi Min City, and onwards to the Mekong Delta. I am skipping many stories I would love to tell and hope to come back to in order to catch up a little bit. Please send me a comment, email or message if you have any questions.

Hello Hanoi!!!

The Chaos

Taipei x 5 times as many scooters + rickshaws + more construction + more people = Hanoi.

I think the equation above best explains why I love Hanoi. I love Taipei, and if you add a little more chaos I love it all the more. I think it would be very hard to get bored in a city like Hanoi. Tourism adds a great deal to the economy, but it is not the sole boon of the economy. There are thriving financial companies, restaurants, retailers and manufacturers. Vietnam has experienced extreme growth, the same type of growth that countries like S. Korea and Taiwan went through in the early '90s. The estimated growth rate over the last couple years is roughly 8%, which puts it in league with China, but (of course) at a smaller scale with only 85 million people in the country.

Hanoi boasts a wonderful night market with tons of wares, goodies and foods that could even tempt the most frugal or picky person. I spent a great deal of time taking pictures and talking to locals. There are a bunch of wonderful Pho places that charge almost nothing for a bowl of soup with cilantro, lime and chili. Yummy!!

Hostel and Booking Tours??

We stayed at the Hanoi Backpacker's hostel, which is a bit more expensive than the others since it is run by two Aussie expats and tends to fill up early with people. They run tours to Halong Bay and Sapa that are highly recommended, but they are waaaay too expensive for the average backpacker. We went to Cat Ba Island in Halong Bay without booking anything and managed to find a semi-decent tour for $30 including meals, transport back to Hanoi, accomodation, etc. Which was a pretty fair price, since many of the others in our group paid double or up to 5 times as much.

Choosing a booking agency is very important, and it definitely pays to double-check everything. People have no incentive to charge you a fair price when they can get a tremendous amount more from you and if you only come once to Vietnam. Businesses change so fast that reputation also holds little value over time. So far, I have yet to really pay full price for anything in Vietnam :). Especially after a month in China and a couple weeks in Vietnam, my ability to haggle has definitely increased.

Remnants of a Different Era...

I managed to see Uncle Ho, which is quite a surreal experience. Uncle Ho as he is affectionately called in the Lonely Planet has been embalmed since his death in 1969 and still envokes a very powerful sense of pride and admiration from the Vietnamese people. The rules are very very strict and cameras are checked at the door. We only had to wait 20 minutes to get through the long line and took all of 5 minutes to pass by the three sides of the glass coffin of the very short and sensei-like man.

There are tons of other things that you can see in Hanoi, but we managed to see a couple temples and what the American POWs dubbed the "Hanoi Hilton" during the Vietnam War. The Hanoi Hilton has an even longer history that is interlinked with the French occupation. Vietnam's history is pretty scattered, meaning that they have experience wars, occupations and clashes with all sorts of countries over the last 1000 years; including China, Japan, France, Vietnam War, Cambodia, and others. There are a couple museums that explain the history of the Viet people much better than I could do in a couple paragraphs.

Okay, that was a very brief description of Hanoi. I am finding it hard to explain everything in such a short amount of space (only one blog post). I have found that the very small things are the most impactful. These things consist of the changes in food, manners, signs, language, and the like. I will be sure to explain more in upcoming posts. I am currently in Mui Ne and a bit behind in my posts. I hope everyone is doing well and I will continue to stay safe and learn lots along the way. Bacissimi !!

Serene and Touristy Sapa

We negiotiated a mini-bus to Sapa and parked ourselves at the Queen Hotel, which was an absolutely fabulous find. Almost all of the places were booked in the little touristy town of Sapa, and, of course, we haggled the price down (by now I am pretty good at this, I haggle for everything). We stayed one night and then did a 2-day trek with a homestay. Sapa is known for the high proportion of H'mong, Dai and other minority groups that add a great deal of character to the colorful and friendly culture of the area.

After China, I appreciated their approach to selling me things "Hello, what is your name? Where are you from? Do you have any brothers and sisters? etc... Would you like to buy from me?". They make almost everything by hand and use the interactions with tourists to learn better English.

There are a couple different groups of the H'mong peoples. Our guide also told us that the languages varied so much that it is incredibly difficult for each of the groups to understand each other. Our guide also told us that the red H'mong (which wear red head dressing) shave their eyebrows and the front part of their hair when they get married. This is because they take over any of the cooking duties and hygiene is a definite concern for the new family. The black H'mong tribe only use a comb to ensure that all of their remains in place; the styles and interpretations of seemingly similar traditions varied greatly among each of the H'mong groups.

The 2 day trek and homestay is a must, even though the trekking was more of a walk along rice patties and traversing the mild hills in the area. We swam in the river with the local children who were giddy with the delight of shoving each other in the water and pushing their way up through the current.

After Sapa we ended to lovely Hanoi!! I am a little behind on my blog as internet access is now always the most accessible, and I still mean to post pictures the next time I get a chance.

Moving On.. Out of China....

First of all, I wanted to let everyone know that I have made it to Vietnam safe and sound! I ended up meeting up with my Italian friend in Kunming and hopped a night bus to Hekou on the Vietnam/China border. We had exchanged messages when I was still in Dali and he purchased the bus ticket for me. I literally had 30 minutes between exiting one bus and catching the other; I had to run to another station (lucky for me, it was the right one and only a couple blocks away, and I was especially lucky since there are 4 stations only a couple blocks away from each other).

The bus ride from Kunming could not have been any more, well, rough and sleepless. Sleeper buses are not always the best, and after yelling for a couple minutes in Chinese that one was my seat and that I would not sleep at the back in a 5 person bed with random Chinese (because afterall, it was not my seat), I was finally in rest mode. At least, that's what I thought. The bus driver said to me as I got on hao kan nide dongxi... which means good look your things... aka people are going to try and steal your stuff. My rusty Italian allowed me to eek out a warning to Alfonso about watching his things during night. Alfonso had already met the Dutch couple that joined us on the bus, both of them would later become our travel partners to Sapa.

The bus stopped maybe 8 times all together for the occasional repair, dropping off construction materials, the driver's proper dinner, and all sorts of other things I couldn't really figure out. The most surprising this is that the bus was still on-time, meaning that they knew how long each of the stops would take. But in the end we made it and the border was only 5 blocks away from the bus station (extremely easy to walk to, don't listen to what anyone tells you). [Head right from the bus station and walk towards the river]. I think the border crossing is much easier going from China into Vietnam and in the wee hours of the morning. We were there at 8:30 AM (Vietnam time, China is an hour behind since there is only one time zone for the extremely large country), and we slipped through without a second glance. I thought maybe as an American that I would encounter some hostility, but there was none. There were tons of Vietnamese crossing over into China, perhaps for the start of their work day and the others seemed to have cheap wares to sell.

Random tip: Don't exchange money at the border (Yuan into Dong or US Dollars at all). There will be plenty of places to buy your money. I get the feeling that Yuan is heavily demanded as people almost fought each other to exchange with us. US Dollars are preferred to Dong, most prices are even quoted in USD first. Always ask the exchange rate, if you can't haggle the price, then try to haggle the exchange rate.

I managed to avoid all hassle with my visa for China being so extremely close to expiration and move on to the next country, while finding a travel mate in the process. Life is good and I feel fortunate to keep finding such luck. I hope every0ne is enjoying their summer at home. I hope to be able to post pictures again soon, good internet access is hard to find for long periods and on computers without viruses...